The greatest actress of our generation, Meryl Streep and the life of JFK’s little-known sister Kick Kennedy are the subject of The Halli Casser-Jayne Show when joining Halli at her table are biographer Michael Schulman, HER AGAIN, BECOMING MERYL STREEP and Barbara Leaming, KICK KENNEDY, THE CHARMED LIFE AND TRAGIC DEATH OF THE FAVORITE KENNEDY DAUGHTER.

Great Reads for $1.99 or less

Author Michael Schulman’s brand new portrait of one of the legends of our time, Meryl Streep, is the first thoroughly researched biography of the actress, with the narrative thrust of a novel. Beautifully written, Schulman peels back the curtain behind the greatest actress of her generation, granting us an intimate look into the formative years that shaped her into the icon she is today. Schulman is a contributor and arts editor at the New Yorker.

You will be riveted by the story author Barbara Leaming tells of Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, second daughter of Joe and Rose Kennedy, the high spirited and dynamic young woman – as ambitious and eager for power as her brother, Jack who would become the 35^th President of the United States. Full of determination, and with her best asset her engaging personality, Kick Kennedy’s is a story of love and war, of politics and changing expectations socially and economically, a story that ends in tragedy, as too many Kennedy stories do. Leaming is the author of three New York Times bestsellers, including her most recent book JACQUELINE BOUVIER KENNEDY ONASSIS.

Biographies, politics, film, history and the lives of two extraordinary women on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Wednesday, May 11, 3 pm ET with authors Michael Schulman and Barbara Leaming. For more information, and to listen to past podcasts visit Halli Casser-Jayne dot com.

It’s politics and history on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Wednesday April 20, 2016, 3 pm ET when joining Halli at her table is journalist Zach Schonfeld whose latest piece in Newsweek magazine is 14 CELEBRITIES EXPLAIN WHY THEY SUPPORT DONALD TRUMP (OR NOT), a fascinating read for more reasons than the obvious. And also on the show are two women who have written one of the most talked about books of the year, AMERICA’S FIRST DAUGHTER, Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie.

Historian LAURA KAMOIE and STEPHANIE DRAY, an award-winning, bestselling and two-time RITA award nominated author of historical women’s fiction have penned a compelling, engaging, sweeping family saga. In AMERICA’S FIRST DAUGHTER they reveal the fascinating, true story of Martha “Patsy” Jefferson Randolph, America’s third president Thomas Jefferson’s eldest daughter, one of the most influential women in American history who was not only the progeny of a founding father but a key player in the shaping of our nation’s legacy.

Zach Schonfeld is a senior writer for Newsweek. Previously, he was an editorial fellow for The Wire and an editor for PopMatters.com. He’s a graduate of Wesleyan University where he was editor of the campus blog Wesleying and a recipient of an Olin Fellowship to study historic preservation. His writing has also appeared on The AV Club, Rolling Stone, The Nation, TIME, The Atlantic, The Rumpus, Noisey, and other publications.

Politics, history, books, authors, presidents, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, celebrity, The Halli Casser-Jayne Show has it all Wednesday, April 20, 2106 3 pm ET. For more about the show visit Halli Casser-Jayne dot com.

From our archives be sure to listen to more on Jefferson, Washington and Lafayette below.

Tired of feeling invisible? Sick of getting no respect? Not willing to take it anymore? Three women of a certain age come together on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show,  Wednesday, November 11, 3 pm ET, to talk about fighting back with attitude. Joining Halli at her table are the authors of THE NEW SENIOR WOMAN: REINVENTING THE YEARS BEYOND MID-LIFE: Dr. Barbara M. Fleisher and Dr. Thelma Reese, and Cheryl Benton, aka the “head tomato,” the founder and publisher of The Three Tomatoes, a digital lifestyle magazine for “women who aren’t kids”.

Barbara Fleisher and Thelma Reese, the founders of the popular website Elderchicks.com, for women over 60 are members of the fastest growing part of the population: senior women in their retirement years also known as “Women of a Certain Age.” Wives, moms, grand moms and successful college professors, the two “old” friends came together, serving as catalysts for witty, candid, and inspirational conversation for women entering their retirement years as told in their tantalizing book THE NEW SENIOR WOMAN, REINVENTING THE YEARS BEYOND MID-LIFE, a compilation of conversations with women from 60+ to 100.

After running her own successful ad agency on Long Island, Cheryl Benton sold her agency to one of the largest ad agencies in the world, and spent nearly 25 year in the New York City ad agency world of mad men and women. Benton, aka the “head tomato” then founded and became publisher of The Three Tomatoes.com, a digital lifestyle magazine for “women who aren’t kids”. Having lived and worked for many years in the land of size zero twenty-somethings, she was truly starting to feel like an invisible woman. She created The Three Tomatoes “just for the fun of it” as the antidote for invisibility and sent it to 60 friends. The rest, as they say, is history.

A conversation with three dynamic women of a certain age about being a certain age and loving it on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Wednesday, November 11, 3 pm ET. For more information visit Halli Casser-Jayne dot com.

Life begins when you can laugh at yourself, and two women who are laughing at themselves, and will make you convulse with laughter, too, join Halli at her table on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Wednesday, June 3, 3 pm ET: Writer, actress and radio personality Sandra Tsing Loh, and actress, comedienne, writer Annabelle Gurwitch.

Sandra Tsing Loh is a contributing editor to The Atlantic, host of the syndicated radio show The Loh Down on Science, and has also been a regular commentator on NPR’s Morning Edition, PRI’s This American Life, and other public radio programs. She has performed two solo shows off-Broadway and she is the author of five previous books, including her 2008 memoir MOTHER ON FIRE. Her latest book is THE MADWOMAN IN THE VOLVO, MY YEAR OF RAGING HORMONES, truly a laugh-out-loud tale of a tumultuous journey through midlife that defines a generation.

Annabelle Gurwitch is the author of YOU SAY TOMATO, I SAY SHUT UP now a play receiving its third national tour, and FIRED! which became an acclaimed documentary and Showtime comedy special. She gained a loyal comedic following during her years hosting Dinner and a Movie on TBS and has been a regular commentator on NPR and contributor to The Nation, More, Glamour, Marie Claire and a number of other national publications. Her acting credits include over fifty guest roles in shows including Seinfeld and Boston Legal. And then Annabelle turned 50, became a statistic, one of the many Americans who every seven and a half seconds reaches the milestone, the subject of her book I SEE YOU MADE AN EFFORT, COMPLIMENTS, INDIGNITIES, AND SURVIVAL STORIES FROM THE EDGE OF 50.

Humor, mid-life crisis, raging hormones, women on fire… a laugh-a-thon with funny ladies Sandra Tsing Loh and Annabelle Gurwitch, Wednesday, June 3, 3 pm ET on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show. For more information visit Halli Casser-Jayne dot com.

Wednesday, April 8, 3 pm ET The Halli Casser-Jayne Show joining Halli at her table are two very funny ladies: actress, comedienne and writer Annabelle Gurwitch and comedian and author Lizz Winstead.

Annabelle Gurwitch is the author of YOU SAY TOMATO, I SAY SHUT UP now a play receiving its third national tour, and FIRED! which became an acclaimed documentary and Showtime comedy special. She gained a loyal comedic following during her years hosting Dinner and a Movie on TBS and has been a regular commentator on NPR and contributor to The Nation, More, Glamour, Marie Claire and a number of other national publications. Her acting credits include over fifty guest roles in shows including Seinfeld and Boston Legal. Recently, she starred in the world premiere of A Coney Island Christmas at The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. And then Annabelle turned 50, became a statistic, one of the many Americans who every seven and a half seconds reaches the milestone, the subject of her book I SEE YOU MADE AN EFFORT, COMPLIMENTS, INDIGNITIES, AND SURVIVAL STORIES FROM THE EDGE OF 50.

A standup comedian by trade, Lizz Winstead is one of the giants of comedy. Winstead got her start in her native Minneapolis, honing her skills in what she calls the “punk rock ghetto” of the early 1980s. She dreamed up a new satirical genre for television when she created THE DAILY SHOW back in 1996 and was co-founder of the Air America Radio network, giving Rachel Maddow her first national audience. In her book LIZZ FREE OR DIE, Winstead writes of her early years, growing up Catholic, getting pregnant the first time she had sex, her move to New York City to follow her calling in comedy, and the many challenges she faced along the way.

Funny girls Lizz Winstead and Annabelle Gurwitch join Halli on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show Wednesday, April 8, 3 pm ET. For more information visit Halli Casser-Jayne dot com.

Wednesday, November 19, 3 pm ET, The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds is taking a fresh, fun, IMPROPER look at the fight for women’s rights with the award-winning author of THE SCARLET SISTERS Myra MacPherson and with journalist Jonathan Eig author of THE BIRTH OF THE PILL.

In this, her fifth book THE SCARLET SISTERS: SEX SUFFRAGE AND SCANDAL IN THE GILDED AGE, award-winning and bestselling author Myra MacPherson returns to the compelling issues of women’s rights addressed in her first book THE POWER LOVERS: THE EFFECT OF POLITICS ON POLITICAL FAMILIES. From history and intrigue to sex and money, MacPherson takes the reader on a jaunty, fun, informative ride through the real-life saga of the sisters Victoria Woodhull and Tennie Claflin, whose radical views threatened the white male power structure of the nineteenth century and shocked the world. A former journalist at the Washington Post, who has also written for the New York Times, numerous magazines, and websites, MacPherson lays bare the manners and mores of Victorian America, remarkably illuminating the struggle for equality that women continue to fight for today.

Jonathan Eig is a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Chicago magazine, The Dallas Morning News, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, Esquire, and The Washington Post. He has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, NPR, and in the Prohibition documentary made by Ken Burns for PBS. He is the bestselling author of LUCKIEST MAN, OPENING DAY, and GET CAPONE. In his latest book, THE BIRTH OF THE PILL, HOW FOUR CRUSADERS REINVENTED SEX AND LAUNCHED A REVOLUTION, he takes a, yes, sexy look at one of the most important inventions of the twentieth century and how it changed everyone’s lives forever.

Both of my guests will be joining me at The Miami Book Fair International November 16-23 at Miami Dade College in Downtown Miami.

Sex, science, scandal and suffrage equal scintillating conversation on the fight for women’s rights on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Wednesday, November 19, 3 pm ET. Listen online at Halli Casser-Jayne dot com.

Two women, two memoirs, two extraordinary lives is the subject of The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds, Wednesday, October 8, 3 pm ET when Halli is joined at her table by award-winning writers Elizabeth Nunez author of NOT FOR EVERDAY USE and Joanna Rakoff author of MY SALINGER YEARS.

Elizabeth Nunez, PhD, immigrated to the US from Trinidad after completing high school. She is the award-winning author of eight novels, four of them selected as New York Times Editors choice, among her books BOUNDARIES, nominated for the 2012 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Fiction and ANNA IN-BETWEEN awarded the PEN Oakland Award. Nunez is a Distinguished Professor at Hunter College, CUNY, where she teaches fiction writing. Her latest book, the memoir NOT FOR EVERYDAY USE is an astonishing achievement. Tracing the four days from the moment she gets the call that every immigrant fears to the burial of her mother, Nunez tells the haunting story of her lifelong struggle to cope with the consequences of the “sterner stuff” of her parents’ ambitions for their children, and her mother’s seemingly unbreakable conviction that displays of affection are not for everyday use.

Joanna Rakoff’s novel A FORTUNATE AGE won the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction by Emerging Writers and the Elle Readers’ Prize, and was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a San Francisco Chronicle best seller. She has written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Vogue, and other publications. Hailed by critics, Rakoff’s new memoir, MY SALINGER YEAR, is a poignant, keenly observed, and irresistibly funny coming of age story of a girl who at twenty-three, after leaving graduate school, dared to pursue her dreams of becoming a poet. A move to New York City, a job as assistant to the storied literary agent for J. D. Salinger, a love affair — well, sort of — Joanna Rakoff’s book MY SALINGER YEAR brilliantly captures literary New York in the late nineties, the pre-digital world on the cusp of vanishing.

A look at the extraordinary lives of two women, Wednesday, October 8, 3 pm ET on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds and Lovers of History. Tune in live online at Halli Casser-Jayne dot com.

So who among us hasn’t been there wedged…trapped…caught…STUCK? You know, when life becomes a routine and every day is just like the day before? When the color of the sky isn’t quite as blue as you thought it used to be, and the tickle of the sun’s warmth on your skin doesn’t seem quite so magical?

Then one day, or is it over many, you realize that you are, in fact, stuck. Life is running you rather than you running your life. A certain inertia seems to have set in and just getting out of the house is a chore. The mood: apathetic…torpid…lethargic…indifferent…oy.

You know that it is time to shake things up, rattle the brain, roll the mind, but just thinking about change is enough to send you back to bed. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn!

Meet four women who found themselves in the State of Stuck but didn’t take it lying down. Instead they hopped, skipped and jumped themselves out of their doldrums and into a year of discovery.

To some they had it all. Pam Godwin: wife, mom, New York City schoolteacher and then…; Karen Amster-Young: Star public relations specialist, wife, mom, successful writer and then…; Jennifer Gardner Trulson: wife, mom, Harvard Law graduate and then…; Nadia Stieglitz: European-born and raised, wife, mom, creative director in publishing, great life in New York City and then…

Recently, these four fascinating women shared their inspiring stories on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds, a fun-filled, honest, insightful, and sometimes, gut-wrenching segment you don’t want to miss. And do pick up a copy of their book, The 52 Weeks. It is chock-full of ideas, expert advice, inspiration, and a host of resources to help you shake, rattle and roll yourselves to a better you, just in time for Spring.

Listen here, or download from iTunes, Spreaker, BlogTalkRadio, Stitcher.com, wherever you like.  Enjoy!

Good morning, everyone,

Today I’m focused on tomorrow’s show: Women Who Do It All….or are women doing too much? Nearly every women I know, particularly Baby Boomer women who grew up at a time when their lives were relegated to motherhood and dutiful wife, to find out later that they would have other and better choices, are women seemingly on a mission. They no longer wear one title, but carry many mantel’s from mom, to CEO, from artist to philanthropist to…you name it. They are women who seek fame and fortune, love and devotion, respect, honor…you name it. They worry about their families, their businesses, themselves, their aging parents. They are everything to everyone, but what about who they are to themselves? Their sisters in womanhood gave them choices, thank you Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem and Ms. Magazine and all the mothers of the Women’s Movement but do we feel that we owe these pathfinders something?  Is guilt motivating our lives?

Lots to think about, a lot to talk about, and we will tomorrow with my guests on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds at 3 pm ET. You can listen right here.

Here are some stories that I thought you’d like to read, fuel for your morning thoughts.

Have a great day!

Halli

THE TOP JOB FOR WOMEN HASN’T CHANGED SINCE 1950

MY HOPE FOR 2030 – MELINDA GATES

A WORKPLACE FOR WOMEN BY WOMEN

WOMEN ON THE FRONTLINE

FYI

The Halli Casser-Jayne Show has an extraordinary segment waiting for you this Wednesday, June 6, 3 pm, and this Thursday, June 7, 9 pm EST: ADULT ENTERTAINMENT AND THE NEW FEMINIST WAVE. Yes, we’re exploring pornography and women. And, yes, some of you might be horrified. We hope that most of you (women and men alike) will tune in with an open-mind for a riveting hour of talk radio at its best. (Check out the show page on this site for further information.)

In the spirit of the upcoming show, I am going to post a piece that originally ran on Huffington Post. It explores a topic we will discuss Wednesday and Thursday.  Some thoughts on the subject:  HOW I WILL TELL MY DAUGHTERS I WORK IN PORN, by porn star Erika Lust.

Of all the interesting points this article brings up, I’m stuck on this one: “I truly believe that if I were a man, I wouldn’t receive the constant moral questioning I referred to initially: about what my parents think and how I’m going to tell my girls, but we already know that being a woman, even today, has it’s ups and downs.”

The writer of the piece, Erika Lust, is talking about working in the porn industry, but isn’t this constant moral questioning part and parcel of the experience of the everyday American woman? Whether we’re writing and directing feminist adult films or working two jobs to make ends meet, there are always the questions: what are you wearing? Who are you sleeping with? Are you setting the “right” example for your daughters (though please don’t ask what the “right” example is — it does tend to make the boys uncomfortable, unpleasant, or both). If the Republican Penis Brigade has their way, those questions will be more than just awkward conversational pitfalls or implications sent along silently on judgmental looks. They’ll be government-mandated “confessions” with government-mandated “solutions,” and I don’t think we need to see that on the silver screen (X-Rated or not) to get why it’s terrifying.

There’s always something to learn from the things we don’t (or, more accurately, WON’T) talk about. This week’s Halli Casser-Jayne Show is all about feminism, porn, and how those two concepts can work beautifully together; join us on Wednesday, and see what you can learn from this taboo that we, as a society, are really old enough to grow out of.

HOW I WILL TELL MY DAUGHTERS I WORK IN PORN, by ERIKA LUST

When people around me learn of my profession, they immediately start asking morbid questions. And even if they’re liberal people, they all ask the same thing: how did you tell your parents and how are you going to tell your daughters? I realize that I have a controversial profession: I’ve written books about sex and feminism, and I also write, produce and direct porn for women.

The feminine voice is marginal in the discourse of porn, which has been expressed in masculine (and often chauvinist) terms for more than four decades. But in these last few years, other young directors and I have successfully demonstrated that another kind of adult film is possible: one where the woman is the protagonist and her pleasure has importance, where the roles that represent us aren’t those of the prostitute, Lolita, nurse, babysitter, nymphomaniac… where, finally, the men aren’t the stereotype of the f–king machine, where the styling and the locations make sense, where there are stories about feelings and passion, where the sex (although explicit) is human and beautiful, and not gynecological or athletic. We are successfully producing porn that is a pleasing experience in both aesthetics and ethics, so far beyond traditional porn, which is so often offensive, violent and displeasing.

I truly believe that if I were a man, I wouldn’t receive the constant moral questioning I referred to initially: about what my parents think and how I’m going to tell my girls, but we already know that being a woman, even today, has it’s ups and downs. I think that I was even judging myself at first, and because of it I had to resist telling my parents, who live in Stockholm, while I was safely away in Barcelona. But they had Internet and my mother, who I had believed incapable of using Google at 70 years old, searched for “Erika Lust” and forced it to come out. But both she and my father surprised me with a very positive reaction, and showed me they understood that there was a very important, very radical difference between my work and traditional porn. They would certainly have been more comfortable if I’d been a lawyer, professor or architect — at least it would have been easier to talk about their daughter’s work with their friends.

Regarding my daughters, I have to admit that I haven’t thought about it at all, since the oldest is four and the youngest is one. But I feel that when the moment arrives, there won’t be a problem: My work is honest, innovative and has a cause. Not only for the content and message of the movies I make, but also because the sex-positive feminism with which I identify, and which defends the idea that sexual freedom is an essential component to women’s rights. And I think porn that is intelligent, respectful of women, contemporary and thoughtful actually contributes to women’s full sexual liberation.

Society is always trying to control and oversee our sexuality, as it does with everything else. Sometimes it’s the state, many times it’s the church, sometimes the more radical feminists, the conservatives and the male chauvinists; all have their motives for controlling us. Their objective is to limit our sexuality to family and reproduction, with the intention that sex should never seem fun; should it, we become dangerous and unworthy of respect in their eyes.

Many times pornography is accused of being the lowest product of society, and of transmitting the worst values; but we shouldn’t forget about television, cinema, advertising, fashion, all of which quite often transmit negative messages about a woman’s body and breed confusion about gender and sexuality.

Fathers, mothers, teachers, aunts, friends, grandmothers, all of these in fact transmit values about sex and gender to children. We must all (including those in porn) think about what we say and how we say it, until the end of their childhood or early adolescence.

I want my daughters to learn that sex is life and pleasure, not just the risk of disease and unwanted pregnancy. I will tell them that I am a writer and director of films, and this my movies talk about love, about men and women who desire each other, about passion and sex. And of course I have to tell them what sex is, but this isn’t just me, it’s all of the fathers and mothers in the world! If we learn to explain what sex is to our children tactfully and in a natural, intelligent manner, we avoid that first explanation being from Nacho Vidal or Rocco Sifreddi. Or in the case of my friend, from Google, when her eight-year-old son and an older friend searched the web for “bitch”.

When they are adolescents and a boyfriend shows them a porn film, I want my daughters to be able to decide what they like and what they don’t: to be critical, to laugh if necessary, and ideally, to show the boys a different kind of film, one that they prefer instead.